Finder's Peepers
by betawho
Summary: Sometimes the Tardis can be so uncooperative. But as Clara learns, sometimes it has reason...


"Great! Where's the Doctor got to now?" Clara said as she craned her neck, looking down the three different Tardis corridors from this junction. A descending engine noise in the background was her only response.

"I don't expect _you_ to help me find him," Clara said huffily to the Tardis, trying to ignore the idea that she was living in a space machine that didn't particularly like her. She could tell by the vibration in the floor that they were still moving, but she had no idea where they were going.

Normally when she woke up she found the Doctor in the console room, already inputting the coordinates for the day's trip. Or occasionally he'd be in the kitchen, preparing a truly huge breakfast.

But this morning, nothing. She'd looked in the library, the conservatory, and several of the lounges and reading rooms (it was really weird that he actually could sit still and read a book. Usually a stack of them.)

But she'd found no trace of him. She still wasn't sure if he even _had_ a bedroom.

It was creepy walking around the Tardis corridors without him, with the Tardis looking over her shoulder. She could swear the stupid machine was making the corridors smaller just to discourage her.

She heard the Doctor's laugh. It echoed down the corridor and she sighed in relief and turned toward it. And watched in disbelief as the corridor in front of her twisted and changed right before her eyes.

All the hair on her body stood up. She knew the Tardis could do that, but she'd never actually seen it. The Tardis was deliberately keeping her from finding the Doctor!

She didn't like this. She rubbed her hands up and down her goosepimply arms. She wasn't sure if it was getting cold in here or if it was just her, being scared. She crossed her eyes in disbelief when she saw her own breath frosting in front of her face.

She backed away down the corridor where it was warmer. She was aware the Tardis was herding her away from the Doctor, but there was nothing she could do about it.

She firmed her jaw. Maybe.

She wasn't letting it win this time. It was time this old rust bucket learned it was just a machine. She kept backing up, kept her shoulders hunched and her hands wrapped around her arms as she retreated to the console room.

She slumped disconsolately up the stairs, careful to keep her face down, her hair dejectedly in her face. She shivered and rubbed her arms. She walked around the Tardis console, stomping her feet to return the circulation.

Abruptly she jumped forward and grabbed the turnkey on the gear console. Before the Doctor's ship could react she turned it with a triumphant, "Ah Hah!"

The Tardis sounds mellowed down. The rotor kept pumping, but now that "looking over the shoulder" feeling was gone.

With the Tardis powered down to basic, maybe _now_ she'd be able to find the Doctor. She checked to be sure the forcefields were still up, after last time he'd put in failsafes. With a nod, and a triumphant pat on the console, she sprinted back down to the corridors and back to where she'd heard the Doctor's laugh.

—

The Doctor's laugh echoed down the Tardis corridor, and Clara let out a sigh of relief. If he was that happy, then nothing could be too wrong.

She heard a splash, and stopped. She rolled her eyes. The pool. Of course. Shaking her head at her own denseness she trotted the now familiar route to the Tardis pool.

She turned the corner into the airlock-like doorway and froze as she heard a husky female laugh. Eyes wide, she peered out carefully around the edge of the door.

There was the Doctor's high, gleeful laugh, then a splash and a blubbing sound. Clara's eyes widened. The Tardis pool took up the whole huge room beyond, and beyond the doorway, off to the side, was the woman with the space-hair, wearing a clingy black one-piece as she gleefully dunked the Doctor, then leapfrogged over him.

The Doctor erupted from the water behind her, reached out with his long arm and snagged her from behind. "Gotcha!" He dragged her down into the water with him. The woman shrieked, half in outrage, half in hysterical laughter.

Clara's mouth dropped open as the two surfaced. Soaking wet, water dripping off of them like jewels, the woman's hair was lying in snakish corkscrews, but her eyes were sparkling brilliantly. "Ooh, you're going to pay for that, Sweetie," she said in a velvet threat.

The Doctor just grinned and leaned forward until his nose touched hers. "Promise?"

The woman grinned and threaded her fingers through his wet hair. Suddenly they were kissing. Very very well.

Clara eeped and pulled back, her eyes huge. She remembered how the Doctor had reacted when she'd mentioned the woman with the space hair. Apparently his ex wasn't as ex as he thought.

Her heart thumping with embarrassment, and something else she didn't want to examine, she trotted off down the corridor as quietly as possible.

She emerged back into the console room and went and turned the restart key with a bit of a vengeful twist. The Tardis awoke and gave her a short sharp shock through the key.

She yelped and jumped back, blowing on her shaking fingers. She glared up at the central column. Somehow it glared back.

Clara threw out her twitching hand toward the pool room, and the very private goings on.

"You could have just _said!_"

—

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